Letter: Is green energy for the birds?

Our home is surrounded by bird houses and bird feeders because we know how important birds are to our environment and the health of our planet. However, our mad dash to green energy is destroying thousands and thousands of our birds.

Fox News reported that the wind turbines in our many wind farms unintentionally kill an estimated 1.4 million birds and bats each year. One reason is that the blades on these installations move deceptively fast and up to 180 miles per hour. This is very deadly on our raptors that like to follow the currents in windy areas looking for field mice and rabbits.

The Wall Street Journal reported, in a four-year study, that the turbines at the Altamont Pass, California, wind farm killed an average of 116 golden eagles each year. Since the killing of many of the bird species is a federal felony, the wind farm industry has demanded and received a 30-year permit that allows them to kill these endangered eagles and others. Wind energy advocates in the Obama administration want a 25-fold increase in wind power. In response to this plan, the editor of Environmental and Climate News calls this proposed increase “an open-ended avian holocaust.”

We must stop the expansion of the bird killing wind turbine farms until we can design less lethal wind turbines.